A New Age
by Illmanir
Summary: A story following the events of The Lost Chapters. How will the hero shape the New Albion freed from the fearsome reign of Jack of Blades?
1. Prologue: When Memories Burn

**Disclaimer: I don't own rights to Fable, nor do I intend to profit from this work of fiction.**

**Prologue:**

**When Memories Burn**

Oakvale burned. A small town, off the south coast of Albion; it had been a small and inconsequential rural settlement, far away from corruption and sophistication, far away from anything remotely dangerous. But on this fateful day it burned, it was engulfed in flames that destroyed everything that defined its innocence, its simplicity. Every cottage, every thatched roof was consumed never to be the same again.

And in the midst of the destruction stood a boy no older than 10 years, utterly horrified at the site all around him. Bandits, criminals had raised the town, burning and annihilating everything on site no man, woman or child had been safe. The boy stood and stared with teary eyes at everything and tried to remember it all as it was, but his mind couldn't construct the image. It was a nightmare made real, the reality of which gorged his every wish and thought.

_My family_ he thought, as he walked through the town, heading to the little courtyard that surrounded his home. As the courtyard came into sight for that first clear moment, despite the haze of orange and dark smoke, the boy's heart stopped beating. Sprawled on the dusty ground was his father Bromine the Woodsman. The boy neglecting his vigilance rushed to his father's side while tears fell freely from his eyes. He knelt over his father and tried to shake him awake but the man didn't stir, his body never giving away the slightest movement. His father had passed, and the boy's fear turned into sadness. He gripped his father's tunic like it was the last thing he would hold while stemming back a desire to shout, his thoughts then went to his mother and sister. Were they dead? Were they touched by the fire? Were they gone too?

As the memory of the peaceful quiet home he'd known began to filter back into his mind, the child cried as he'd never cried before or ever again. "What now?" were the words that drifted soundlessly through his thoughts before he opened his tear-drenched eyes as a man in dark armor, laying over the floor on his knees, as he had done as 10 year old nearly twenty years before.

The man looked around to assess his present condition and it only took a moment for recollection: the image of a screeching dragon streaking across his tired mind. It had breathed fire and brimstone unrelenting, but it had somehow failed to kill him. Battling dragons was the stuff of children's stories, but for Théoden Bloodsword – also known as Avenger- it had just been a frightening reality. It was not courage that drove his sword (Avo's Tear) into the heart of the beast but fear, and revulsion at the being that consumed the giant reptile, Jack of Blades himself.

Théoden walked away from the forge pit that served now as Jack's final resting place - his body racked in pain, and full of tension in places that seemed unharmed. His black plated armor with its small intricate patterns of crimson red was covered in the smog that pervaded the air of Archon's Folly. The armor itself was melted and seared in several parts and now felt cumbersome to wear. His exhausted limbs did their best to move his large frame towards the entrance out of the catacombs of Archons Folly, but their best involved a slow trudge through the volcanic soil of the dragon's lair.

The Bronze Gate - as it was commonly called - was the only door that led in and out of Archon's folly and when Théoden arrived at it he rested his hands on its sturdy frame before attempting to open it. The structure felt heavier than Théoden remembered as he leaned back and pulled open the heavy doors. Stumbling out of the opened gateway and falling on his knees, Théoden quickly removed his helmet and breathed in the unpolluted cool air of the Northern Wastes. He looked around at the foot path that lead into Archon's folly and away towards Archon's Shrine, in the distance he saw the narrow red silhouette of Briar Rose and standing next to her was the equally narrow frame of Scythe. Rising from one knee and suppressing the pain and fatigue that wrapped itself all around him, Bloodsword walked steadily towards the red scholar and the ancient warrior.


	2. Chapter 1: Last Embers of The Past

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fable - obviously - or any other associated products. **

**The Last Embers of The Past**

The night was soon approaching, and as the sun settled it colored the horizon red as the landscape below it darkened. Below the setting sun, a plane was strewn red with blood, mirroring, in colour, the clouds of the sky above. They came to him like a storm of mad cackling apparitions, heedless of their own plight. His large sword found its first victim after a vicious stroke. The victims mid section being ripped open by whirling sharp-edged metal. The second victim split open from the top of his head; a third decapitated, the fourth cut down like the first. The fifth came from behind him and got stabbed in the throat.

"Step away, you mad men," the large swordsman bellowed as he cut down the assailants.

The mob continued to clamor towards him from all sides of the town. They were armed with kitchen knives, pitchforks and poorly crafted long swords; the implements of a poor farm town.

"Stop," he shouted again and again, as he cut them down one after the other.

"Is this what you want, to be cut down like swine!" He said with vehemence, as his blade swept through the mob like a whirlwind in a field of leaves. "Stay back!"

He swirled his sword in a 180 arc, cutting down more villagers as they closed in.

"Is death all you seek?!" He asked, but the crowd didn't show any signs of acknowledgment or concern for his words.

His shock had since turned to disgust, but now that disgust turned into rage, "Is this what you want?" he shouted, thrusting his sword forward, "destruction?!"

But the mad villagers continued to press forward even as others fell.

"Then I will give you death, I will gladly rend flesh from bone," he roared.

"Come, come you swine, death has come to claim you!"

An almost berserk rage overcame the swordsman and he cut them down like wheat against a scythe. In the midst of his raging attack, a peasant in a green-mixed-with-brown tunic, and dark trousers, stepped through the crowd with his farmer's tool. He had brown eyes, large side burns, a big chin, and a fairly wide head framing a prominent nose. The large man saw the green clad assailant on the periphery of his vision and swung his sword towards him, striking him down with one killing blow. As he turned in stride, to continue his assault on more aggressors, his eyes lay fully on the now dead, green-clad peasant; and the image brought Théoden to a standing halt.

"Father...?" he questioned as he looked down on the corpse.

He bent down to touch the body and as he sunk to the ground, he let out a groan; violently and suddenly, a shaft of dull steel was driven into his back, to remain protruding outward from his torso. He clutched his bleeding chest desperately as his life flowed out freely from his wound. "Fath…e...r," he blotted out once more, before the world went dark, as he surrendered his spirit to oblivion. Théoden woke up in a cold sweat, clutching his chest but no sword had pierced him. _Just a dream,_ he thought, _just a stupid dream_.

Théoden Bloodsword looked on his surroundings; he glanced outside through his window to determine the time of day as he always did. It was early morning perhaps no more than four hours past midnight. Bloodsword, gingerly slipped out of his bed, careful not to aggravate the bed he had been lying in. He quietly tied belts of thin cotton fabric around his body, to provide support for the medical gauze that covered most of his back. He had sustained burns all over his torso and back - most especially around his shoulder blades - in his battle with Jack's dragon incarnation. The injuries forced him to maintain the light porous sterilized piece of fabric on his skin. Among his other injuries were; a fracture on his left forearm (ulna) bone and another in the lower right (tibia) bone of his right leg.

The large man softly tip toed towards a small leather bag that had been squeezed behind a cupboard in one corner of his cottage. He quickly opened the bag and slipped on a woolen sweater over a thin vest of chain mail. The sweater had an unusual add-on at the collar: an extension of the bottle necked garment made of cotton, which slipped over his mouth and nose. A small lace accompanied the extension which allowed Théoden to fasten the cloth over his nose and mouth, to ensure it stayed where it was. He wore black trousers over thick black woolen-and-cotton elastic leggings. Finally, Théoden wore a simple black leather mask on top his head, that – along with the collar extension over his mouth and nose – kept his face and head entirely concealed.

Théoden wrapped his left arm and right leg – that were held together with metallic braces - with large ribbons of soft leather skin. He fitted his hands into thick gloves that were inlaid with insulating materials, coated with a protective layer of water proof leather on their outside. Bloodsword took his large sheathed sword – Avo's Tear - from a cupboard that stood in the back wall of his quarters; he tested its weight by swinging it around then strapped it to his back. He fitted a quiver of arrows to his back, with a corresponding obsidian long bow that had a hollow crimson gem of black magic that arched over the handle. The bow was called, Overberg's long bow. A large round shield made of steel with basic concentric patterns on its face, completed his suit and was tied to his back as well.

The autumn snow fell down sedately on a quiet morning, in the town of Snowspire. Autumn in the Northern Wastes meant the beginning of a long wintry spell. The whole subcontinent seemed to be trapped in some kind of ice age; the continent in its entire history had only known harsh winter climates; the warm seasons only lasting three months before it went back to winter and snow fall, or if not snow fall, dry cold weather.

Théoden Bloodsword stepped out of his apartment and looked across the front door and along the street on both sides: the coast was clear. Théoden moved briskly through the town despite favouring a slight limp and made straight for the Snowspire stables.

Several meters form the stable, Théoden spotted a town guard resting his back on the side wall of the building that functioned as the town's main stable. Théoden could walk right up to the guard and show his face and he would be allowed access to the stables. But he wanted secrecy. No one was to know (with any kind of certainty) where he was ultimately headed. Théoden walked gingerly up to a perimeter fence a few meters from the stable and crouched next to it. Théoden thought of a dozen different ways to do this but he settled for the more direct method. Sneaking away he collected a number of rocks and placed them onto a piece of cotton fabric. Twisting the contents with the fabric, he fashioned a make shift sling shot and returned to the post at the fence.

Théoden approached the building from the opposite adjacent end, and stealthily walked towards the guard from his right side. When Théoden thought he had good enough range he hurled his make shift sling directly at the guards head. As anticipated, the guard collapsed to the ground after the sling shot had struck. Before the guard could make sense of what was happening, Théoden run quickly at him and knocked him out with a single well placed right handed punch to the jaw.

Théoden climbed onto his horse – a powerful grey stallion – and guided it away from the town of Snowspire and towards the bay. The old port called the Lost Bay was empty except for a large boat whose silhouette was only faintly visible through the darkness of the morning. The single vessel anchored at the Lost Bay was the Ship of The Drowned. The boat was a medium sized brig that was manned by a dead crew and it therefore possessed the ability to traverse any sea under any circumstances.

Though the ship had its great advantages to regular boats to use it you needed to have a strong spirit, otherwise the haunting and demented images the ghosts projected would break your mind. Théoden blindfolded his stallion to help keep it calm as he led it on foot below decks. He rested the horse in comfortable spot and put a trance on it by focusing will energy towards its head so as to switch off it conscious mind. Once at the deck Théoden instructed the first mate a man who was once known as Fenus to set sail for The Gibbet province.

There were secrets to uncover and they would be found in a place still largely untouched by civilization, a place where beast predators prowled and where dark witchcraft brewed; the depths of the Gibbet woods. Théoden crouched silently in the aft of the deck, in silent commune with the crew of the ship of the dead, as they all sped towards the Gibbet coast.

Next Chapter – The Ship of The Drowned


End file.
